The AFI akaAmerican Film Institute is a rich and storied institution that provides a fantastic look at the American film industry. One of the best things about their site is the many top 10 and top 100 lists available for the true film fans.

Holiday movie fans will be especially happy with “AFI’s 100 Years 100 Cheers” a list of the Top 100 list of what AFI dubs “America’s Most Inspiring Movies.”

The evidence that we are living in one of the most amazing times in human history for communication and connectivity was again validated today. Marielle, the young girl from the Philadelphia area, who was facing certain death without an immediate kidney transplant has found a perfect donor.

Our Global Conversation

There is a global conversation being supported by bloggers, social media sites, and the many free community tools that make up our new Web 2.0 social media construct. In this case, within a 24 hour period, Marielle’s story was supported and viral spread on a world wide basis.

“It ends up friends and friends of friends posted about my search for a kidney donor to Marielle on Twitter, Facebook, web sites, and blogs–it made the news (special thanks to Courtney on Fox News!). . . and now we have more possible donors than we could have ever wished for! Thank you to EVERYONE who sent in donor forms, called, blogged, twittered, and helped spread the word. . . But WE DO NOT NEED ANY ADDITIONAL DONORS AT THIS TIME.”

“I am amazed by the power of the web and the hearts of those who helped make a difference.” —thedomesticdiva Marielle’s Mom

Twitter.com is fast becoming the go-to source for small and big business marketing. For me, Twitter represents my greatest content resource, broadcasting opportunity, and a fantastic networking opportunity with industry leaders. One of those leaders, Guy Kawasaki, dropped a “tweet”, aka mini message, about the power of Twitter in growing your business.

The following is a comment, on MotleyFool.com, answering the question: “Does Twitter Help You Build Your Business?”:

On November 24, 2008, at 3:56 PM, j2xl wrote: I work at Amazon. During a lunch break last March I wrote a simple bot that posts Amazon’s deal of the day to Twitter. Since then I’ve added Lightning Deals throughout the day. The bot now has close to 3,000 bargain-hunting followers and drives all sorts of orders every day. Add it to the list of Twitter success stories. Check it out at http://twitter.com/amazondeals .

Analysis:

Big corporations like Amazon, small firms like Innerarchitect.com, and entrepreneurs like Adam Helweh of Secret Sushi Creative are building their businesses, creating opportunities, and connecting with industry leaders on Twitter. The next time you are looking for a method and strategy to increase your business, make new connections, find opportunities, look for a job, or broadcast news about you–look no further than Twitter.com. It is your “mini PR release-sound bite broadcasting” tool.

It is not often that I make impassioned pleas on deansguide but this is a very very grave situation and one worthy of support. As I rolled through my twitter feeds, a new friend Chris Brogan, left a link to the following article written by blogger the domestic diva “Sew Urgent: Help Save My Daughter’s Life”

There is Hope:

Marielle is being transfered to a new and better hospital NY Presbyterian-Columbia University Hospital (NYP) in hopes their additional living-donor kidney programs will save her life. Please consider the following kidney donor options if you or somebody you know can help Marielle.

The continued downward spiral of print media advertising revenues has large American papers rethinking their strategy for survival. Unfortunately for consumers who prefer inky newsprint on their figertips and something to hold, the strategy of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is a massive price increase. The SF Chronicle, not bothering to announce the increase, raised their newsstand price from .50 to .75 a whopping 50% increase. Adding insult to injury, the paper is offering less information-for more.

Trend Away from Print

“Want Ad” Advertising for employment, real estate, and other consumer goods has been severely hampered by the influx of sites like Craig’s list, blogs, and other social media sites that provide more strategically targeted information and advertising for free.

Survival Tactic

Now readers who enjoy traditional print media will have to pay more for the privilege of buying a paper off the newsstand or from their local paperboy. The reason for this is the fact that online advertising revenue is taking over as the prime income stream for many newspapers.

The Strategy

Sfgate.com the online newspaper for the San Francisco Chronicle is a vibrant example of what many news agencies are beginning to realize. A news site like sfgate.com is a massive blog. News stories, advertising, want ads, and other media placed everyday makes for a massive SEO machine. The sheer volume of information placed on sfgate.com everyday makes it a high traffic blog-website that ranks high on Google.

The Results

The S.F. Chronicle has a solid path to advertising revenue via it’s sfgate.com site. The paper has a chance to survive as it moves it’s operations online providing a vibrant and viable news product.

The consumer wins because the sfgate.com site is the SF Chronicle paper. Everyword is online for any reader willing to go to the site. The win for consumers is that the online version is FREE. Consumers willing to read their paper online don’t spend a dime. Is that not what Web 2.0 is all about?

How do bloggers measure their writing, article effectiveness, viral marketing power, and popularity with readers? Comments from readers and blog traffic can only provide a margin of insight into your effectiveness. Clive Thompson’s great New York Times article “If You Liked This, Your Sure to Love That” describes an interesting contest hosted by online movie rental company Netflix.

Netflix Offer

Netflix is offering anyone the opportunity to win a $1,000,000 prize. The challenge is to increase Netflix’s Cinematch it’s recommendation search engine. The engine suggests movie titles to consumers based on what they have chosen in the past. Netflix will pay out the cash prize to anyone who can increase their search accuracy by 10%. The leaders in this contest and their progress.

Netflix Problem

Statistical analysis and algorithms do not account for a genre of movies that have been described as quirky or unpredictable. The effect is called the “Napoleon Dynamite Problem” because it is said that this type of movie is either loved or hated by it’s viewers. Very little middle ground exists or gray area of preference.

Blogger’s Measurement Experiment: Posit for Answers

According to the article, Netflix is considering the following experiment:

“. . . hiring cinephiles to watch all 100,000 movies in the Netflix library and write up, by hand, pages of adjectives describing each movie, a cloud of tags that would offer a subjective view of what makes films similar or dissimilar. It might imbue Cinematch with more unpredictable, humanlike intelligence.”

Posit: How We May Learn

1. Bloggersset up a tag cloud for each individual blog article rather than for an entire blog’s library

2. If that can be done, the next step would be to ask readers to provide 3-5 adjectives that describe the blog article they just read.

3. Tag Cloud information would give bloggers an idea how readers perceived the value of their article and provide the following benefits:

3 Measurements Benefiting Bloggers

1. If a blog reader likes one article what other articles in your blog library would they enjoy?

2. Internal blog linking and construct could be improved if the blogger understood synergy between their articles

3. Don’t just rely on Categories as predictors for synergy between articles

Final Analysis and Acknowledgements

Netflix realizes that their best method to answers is to measure a social network: “It might imbue Cinematch with more unpredictable, humanlike intelligence.”

Thanks go to Vijay Krishna who alerted me to this information on Twitter.com: a fantastic social media site that provides 80% of my research data. You can find solid information by following Vijay on Twitter . Thanks also go to New York Times writer Clive Thompson for his insightful and wonderful piece on this challenge. Thank you Clive!

Do you want to learn two hugely important tips to become a better public speaker, more connected with your audience, and a method to provide your audience with an actionable next step? If the answer is yes then please read Chris Brogan’s fantastic article “Two Important Speaking Tips.”

Chris Brogan, one of this generation’s true social media superstars states: WIIFM aka “What Is In It For Me?” Before you can understand how to provide the audience with the answer to WIIFM, let’s examine one of the most common mistakes speakers make–me included.

Our Introduction Rarely Connects Us to the Audience

According to Chris: “We have a tendency to clear our autobiographical throats before we dig into educating an audience. Then, we end with no real sense of what comes next. This means we leave people excited, but with nothing to do.”

Analysis: Often times I rely upon building my credentials first before getting to WIIFM. Do you find yourself moving your own value message forward before connecting with the audience’s need to CARE about your message?

2 Tips to Help Your Public Speaking

1. WIIFM: Ask Your Audience a Question- According to Chris you want to ask your audience a question “that sounds like it came right out of their head.”

Example: If you are giving a session on the merits of blogging as a tool for job seekers in their job search you might ask:

“Do you think people REALLY believe blogging will change the process of searching for a job?”

Benefits: By asking this type of question, you are relating to the audience’s need to care and understand what is in it for me.

Second benefit is what Chris refers to as taking away their “sword”:

“This means start by making sure your audience (especially if they’re skeptics) knows that you’re on their side.

2. Takeaways: these are very important for a speaker to include in their presentation. They are the next step actions and things people can do to apply the tips-information you have provided during your presentation. As Chris states, and I can vouch for this myself, takeaways are “the whole “next steps” stuff that people seem to crave at events.”

The Takeaways you provide should be “very actionable.” When I finished my workshop on Blogging to Employment, I gave my audience a homework assignment that included research, writing their initial blog article, and formulation of a target list.

Benefit of Takeaways Keeps You Connected: you remain connected and have a solid reason to collaborate with your audience as a resource and coach for their next step actionable items.

Organizational Structure: people need and want structure and organization. By giving Takeaways and “homework” you are helping your audience to be more organized in their quest for new information and solutions.